Born to be green

JIM KENZIE FOR THE TORONTO STAR

More horsepower, faster shifting and less weight has resulted in a seriously fast car, reports Jim Kenzie, who says his only regret is not putting the hammer down more when driving around a private track.

Jim Kenzie

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

MONTICELLO, N.Y.–The fastest Bentley ever is also the greenest Bentley ever.

That'd be the Supersports, the latest change rung on the popular GT Coupe theme.

The "fastest" bit comes by virtue of more power (now 621 horsepower, up from 600 in the GT Speed and 552 in the base GT), a revised six-speed ZF transmission with "Quickshift," which reduces shift times by 50 per cent, and lighter weight.

Okay, 110 kg isn't much, but it does bring the car to 2,240 kg, just below the 5,000-pound mark.

Sparco carbon-fibre shell seats net about 23 kg each.

There's no back seat, just a luggage shelf with a carbon fibre retention bar which looks like a lateral brace but isn't.

The standard carbon-ceramic brakes and new 20-inch alloy wheels also pare off a few, um, "kiggs" (my new made-up metric weight equivalent to "klicks").

The result is a seriously fast car, with a sub-four-second 0-100 km/h sprint time and a top speed of 330 km/h.

The usually graceful lines of the GT Coupe have been made almost evil with gaping air inlets and hood (er, "bonnet") vents, bulged rear fenders to accommodate the wider wheels, and vapour-deposition stainless steel brightwork in a sinister smoked steel-grey colour.

A quarter of a million dollar car without power seats?

Yep. Manually adjustable, fore-and-aft only, and no height adjustment at all, which leaves anyone my height or shorter sitting as in a bathtub, unable to get a good look at some of the instruments that are buried at the bottoms of deep tunnels.

They look very restrictive, but actually are quite comfortable. Early customer feedback suggests Bentley may also offer more conventional seats.

The suspension has been firmed up, too, yet ride quality is, again, surprisingly compliant.

The full-time four-wheel drive system now has a nominal 40/60 front-rear bias, for more agile handling.

Three laps of the private Monticello Motor Club circuit were nowhere near enough to explore the potential of this mighty beast. Partly because I thought we were going to get many more, I took it very easy.

Wish I'd driven the door handles off it while I had the chance, because the limits of something this potent should never be explored on public roads.

I must confess, on a few rare occasions when it appeared feasible, I wound it out on the drive home. The acceleration is 747-like.

Sounds like a big jet, too.

Bentley is using the Supersports to launch its environmental initiative. It is (or, in North America, will be by next summer, following expected regulatory approval) Bentley's first flex-fuel car, capable of running on any blend of gasoline and ethanol up to E85, for a CO2 reduction of up to 70 per cent on a "well-to-wheel" basis.

It's just that sort of irony that appeals to Bentley's chief engineer, Brian Gush. "Because E85 has a lower energy content, we need lots of fuel at higher revs to sustain the car's top speed when running ethanol,'' he told me.

"That means a huge flow rate for the injectors.''

Sort of like pouring the fuel down a drainpipe.

"But with a huge aperture like that, the car couldn't idle when running on gasoline. We couldn't find an injector that could handle both extremes.''

The solution was to apply computer control to the fuel pumps, cranking them up when running on E85, backing them off when on gasoline.

As far as Gush knows, this is an industry exclusive.

Bentley's approach of variations on a theme wouldn't appeal only to J. S. Bach – it appears to appeal to customers, too. A full 62 per cent of GT sales are now of the formerly highest-performing GT Speed variant.

The Supersports won't come close to that, but for the sort of customers for whom a membership in a club like Monticello makes way more sense than membership in yet another golf club, the Supersports will keep them shopping in the Bentley showroom instead of wandering down to the Ferrari or Aston Martin store.

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